


One Breath at a Time

by rororat



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, Immortal Fake AH Crew, Immortals, Jack is mute, Origin Story, Temporary Character Death, Trans Jack, jack origin story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 12:19:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6803881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rororat/pseuds/rororat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One breath at a time. That's how Jack lives her life. She doesn't plan ahead, and doesn't focus about what's coming up in her life. All she needs to focus on is her next breath.</p>
<p>One breath at a time...</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Breath at a Time

Lives are lived, and lives end.

That's simply how it is. These lives, be it people, plants or animals have all coexisted alongside one another for years. All of them work together in a harmony that allows for life to go on. Lives give and lives get. But in order for life to go on, lives must end.

Everything that wakes each morning will one day fail to wake up. Everything that feels the sun's rays and the feelings that other lives bring them, will one day no longer feel. Everything that breathes will one day draw their final breath.

Perhaps Jack will finally reach her final breath when the sun implodes, devouring the Earth and it's remaining atmosphere with it. Maybe when the time comes, she'll move to another planet with a similar atmosphere, as you do. From there she can watch the earth takes it's final collective breath. 

Or, Jack may just take her final breath her on Earth. A calm breath of finality or one grasping and struggling around a mouthful of soup.

There is no way to tell, so in the mean time Jack continues to simply breath.

Her breathing should have stopped years ago, back when the guillotine severed her wind pipe. That tends to make breathing a bit more difficult. Or it could have stopped when her lungs began to tighten and struggle filling with smoke as she was accused for practicing witchcraft. If those two didn't stop her breathing, then the bullet that found her chest, piercing the scar covered lungs and allowing them to collapse during the heist last week surely should have. Whichever one was meant to have ceased all breathing to move past Jack's lips seems to have failed. Jack just continues to breath.

But these scars Jack has accumulated can cause damage. The guillotine left a big scar after all, visible as a straight line at the back of Jack's neck that begins to fade as it wraps around towards her front. 

The crew Jack is with now doesn't know what Jack's voice sounds like. Even Jack isn't sure if she knows what her voice sounds like anymore. She knows what she wants it to sound like, what it sounds like in her head. But she hasn't heard her voice since the first time she stopped breathing.

Jack didn't scream as the crowd cheered on her final breath and when Jack woke up several streets away she still didn't scream. The cheers and applause were audible as another noble man's neck was put on display for all to see. He wasn't like Jack. When he took in his final breath, he was not awarded with another. Instead, he used his breath to scream.

And oh boy, did he scream.

But Jack continued on. She continued to do the one thing she could do. Breath.

In her borrowed years - as Jack referred to them because they were clearly not her own. Her years had been cut short by the blade of the guillotine - Jack meet many new faces in a variety of places. All of them loves to talk. Some talked highly of themselves bragging about their crafts and skills. Some talked of their families and friends, warming Jack's heart with their sincerity. And even more talked of their plans and their future. They were all kind and modest, they would ask Jack what she had planned for her time hear on this earth.

But this time was not hers. Jack didn't know how much longer she would be here. So with a deep breath and a shrug of her shoulders, Jack would brush away their questions.

In return, all these people would simply brush Jack aside. Someone without a plan for life would only hinder their own.

And Jack would let them. Sometimes these people were right. They would reach their goals, even go beyond them. And other times these people would never see any of their plans set into action. Some losing ambition or having a change in heart. Others having drawn their final breath before they were even aware of it.

Jack could do nothing for any of them. Jack would simply leave while others drew their final breaths and she continued to keep on breathing.

Now Jack was just like anyone else. She would stop breathing on occasion. Sometimes you simply had to hold your breath in order to survive. Like when smoke starts to drift up from underfoot, its best to avoid allowing the smoke to tangle into your lungs as it swirls around your head as Jack had failed to do. When forced under crashing waves, it's beneficial to halt your breathing. And it may not always work, but when someone with a gun comes looking for you and all you can do is hide, it just feels like putting off breathing in hopes to be just a bit more quiet to stay hidden may just work.

But beyond these moments, Jack has continued to breath. So much happens for Jack in her life that cannot be predicted. She doesn't know when her borrowed years will end. She doesn't know when the next person who tells her about their future plans will actually live to see the outcome of them and Jack will not. She doesn't know when she holds her breath if she will do so indefinitely.

Even now, living with a crew of people who live on borrowed time just like her, Jack still doesn't know what will happen next.

Maybe as Jack slows down her breathing to calm herself down as blood leaks out of yet another wound, this wound may not scar. Maybe when on of her crew members doesn't return home at night, she may never see them again. Maybe, just maybe...

She'll see a pig fly.

Because in Jack's life of doubt and uncertainty, there is no known. There is no future plan, because there is no certainty of a future. If there is one, Jack can't see it.

The crew seems to be able to see the future better than Jack. Ray can see a few hours into the future as he plans his meal after he gets the current achievement he's working on. Ryan and Jeremy can see at least a couple of days into the future as they plan to return from their break in the all too famous 'Murder Break' later that weekend. Gavin and Michael have both managed to see a week's worth into the future as the two sit at the kitchen island planning a night of bevs at the beach with a couple of allied crews. And Geoff, well he must be the most talented of them all. Geoff's able to see a whole month into the future as he sits in his study planning out the crew's next heist set for 3 weeks from Tuesday.

Jack isn't like any of them. She can't see a month into the future. Nor a week, or a few days, or a couple of hours.

One breath.

That's how far ahead Jack can see. jack can see one breath into the future. She knows her next breath is coming, and that's all she knows. Everything else that comes will come and other things will never come, and Jack will deal with it all as it arrives. But the one thing she is certain will come is her next breath. That's all Jack needs to know because that's what keeps Jack alive. Until the day Jack takes her final breath and can not see any more coming in her future, Jack will continue to live on.

One breath at a time.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by a tumblr post I have lost the link to. But the post talked about how you can only see as far as one breath into the future, and that's been helping me a lot. 
> 
>  
> 
> Got a comment or a question? Tell me!  
> Found a mistake? Let me know!  
> Know the post I'm talking about? Send me the link and I can link it in the notes.
> 
> Don't want to do any of these? Then have a good day friend. Seriously. Do something you enjoy and cherish what is here, not what isn't.


End file.
